On Friday, Francina Armengol reflected on her time as Balearic president by saying that she couldn't be more proud of everyone's efforts. She offered her thanks "for having made what seemed impossible possible".
This was her eighth New Year message. The election in May will determine if she makes a ninth. It was delivered in Santa Eugènia, a municipality that has pioneered solar energy self-consumption and is a symbol of advances in energy transition since she became president in 2015 and of "the path we have taken to become one hundred per cent renewable islands".
Armengol looked forward to a third term in stressing measures to address the islands' housing problems and those already adopted.
"Next year, the Balearics will have 72% more public housing than in 2015 and we will consolidate the largest construction cycle since the establishment of democratic government (1983 in the Balearics). We will make empty apartments available to all and activate a new measure to finance the taking-on of a mortgage. We will generate a large housing stock that guarantees the right to always have a home."
For the president, the Balearics are a land of "equality, justice and respect for diversity". Without naming any party, she stated: "Faced with those who use politics as a weapon of confrontation and whose objective is the destruction of consensus, in the Balearics we have known how to make dialogue a way of doing politics."
Among other things, she referred to "a strategic investment plan" agreed with all sectors for the 2030 Agenda and to the fact that financial and fiscal measures to address insularity have finally been recognised.